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Home > MonaLisa News > Birthday-Concert 2006 and Birthday-CD

Our 12th Birthday - Concert & CD

Saturday, 17 June 2006

> 1. The Birthday-Concert 2006
> 2. The Birthday-CD for Franz and Ilse

1. The Birthday-Concert

Narrated by Mona.

Our 12th birthday had arrived. Like every year the party took place at our home. We had our spacious garden with pool and fire place at our disposal as well as the big hall which is attached to our house and in which we played our live-concerts in fall 2007. While thinking about entertainment for our friends we had the idea to play some songs for them. As we were playing some songs with our Dad in his recording studio anyway, we considered our party the ideal occasion for our own little concert.

At that time our repertory included the songs Stand by me, Proud Mary, Wonderful tonight, Goodbye my lover and Smoke on the water. These links will get you the audio samples of our live concert version 2007 (in 2006 we certainly weren't that good). Our Dad accompanied us on the keyboard and by that occasion he also replaced missing instruments like the bass.

Our garden with pool, fire place and big lawn.

Like every year: When we celebrate our birthday the garden is ours.

Eventually our friends arrived. We extensively celebrated with cakes, presents, swimming, ball games, water bombs and so on.

In the evening, when it became dark outside, all kids assembled in the hall where we had already put up our loudspeakers, the microphones and our instruments - just at the same place, where our big stage is located today.

We were very jittery because all our friends from Elementary School and Highschool were there - about 30 kids in total.

Mona and Lisa playing for their friends.

Great party-feeling with good sound and lighting.

I still remember very well that our first song was Stand by me. Afterwards our friends told us that they liked our performance very much. That made us happy and proud. Even the boys listened till the end and did not disturb or leave us for playing football instead ;)!

I would say, for it was our first concert it was good enough. Above all we then knew what we would have to change and improve in the future and what we did right or wrong. We then let the evening die with torches, camp fire and splashing in the lighted pool.

Family Birthday Celebration: Mona on the drums, Lisa is singing.

The picture to the left was shot by our grandpa Franz - one week later, when we played the songs again for our families. We celebrated birthdays a second time - our own ones but also the birthdays of our grandpa, of Michaela and of our little cousin Oliver. The balloons were a little deflated already but we weren't! We cared for good atmosphere again, Michaela's parents even danced to our music!

2. The Birthday-CD for Franz and Ilse

Especially our grandpa Franz who is very likely our biggest fan at all :) liked it very much. And so we decided with our Dad to present him a self-made CD for his birthday. That was exciting!

We recorded the CD in our hall, where our instruments still were put up. It was end of June, meaning it was nice and warm. We had put up tables with the mixing console, the laptop, etc. Then we recorded all five songs of the birthday party, one after the other. In that days we still used our Daddy's "old" profi studio equipment.

You can imagine that recording was lots of fun and a brandnew experience for us. The songs were "in the box" quite fast (at least for us - Daddy had a "bit" more work). Let me say that from today's view our musical standard wasn't so bad.

The instrumental line-up of the songs was the following:

Stand by me: Vocals: Lisa, Rap-Vocals: Mona, Keyboard: Daddy, Guitar: Lisa, Drums: Mona

Wonderful tonight: Vocals: Lisa, Keyboard: Daddy, Guitar: Lisa, Drums: Mona

Smoke on the water: Vocals: Lisa, Keyboard: Daddy, Guitar: Lisa, Drums: Mona

Proud Mary: Vocals: Lisa, 2nd Voice: Mona, Keyboard: Daddy, Guitar: Lisa, Drums: Mona

Goodbye my lover: Vocals: Lisa, 2nd Voice: Mona, Keyboard: Daddy, Guitar: Lisa, Drums: Mona

Last but not least we recorded "Happy Birthday" as a completely weird version: At the beginning mulit-vocal, tenuous, breathy and high like angels. For that purpose our Dad copied our vocal tracks a few times. And then: ...1,2,3,4 the e-guitar and drums set in and we sang like hardrockers. That was fun! We fooled around the whole time and couldn't slow down anymore.

This tiny little "CD-production" increased our exactness in playing, our experience and our interest in making music quite another bit. And it gave us a foretaste what it would need to become a professional musician. Simply cool!

Kizzes, Your MonaLisa

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